Religion : yso/browse
The Bijak of Kabir//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195148762.001.0001/acprof-9780195148763
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780195148763.jpg" alt="The Bijak of Kabir"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Linda Hess, Shukdeo Singh</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780195148763</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Hinduism</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/0195148762.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2002</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2003-11-01</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>Kabir, the fifteenth‐century weaver‐poet of Varanasi, is still one of the most revered and popular saint‐singers of North India. He belonged to a family of Muslim julahas (weavers of low‐caste status), is believed to have been a disciple of the Hindu guru Ramanand, and often sang of inner experience using language of the subtle yogic body. Yet he cannot be classified as Hindu, Muslim, or yogi. Fiercely independent, he has become an icon of speaking truth to power. In a blunt and uncompromising style, he exhorted his listeners to shed their delusions, pretensions, and orthodoxies in favor of a direct experience of truth. He satirized hypocrisy, greed, and violence—especially among the religious. Belonging to a social group widely considered low and unclean, he criticized caste ideology and declared the equality of all human beings. Kabir was an oral poet whose works were written down by others. His oral traditions have flourished for more than 500 years, producing a rich array of musical forms, folk and classical, in countless local dialects and regional styles. Thousands of poems are popularly attributed to Kabir, but only a few written collections have survived over the centuries. The Bījak is the sacred book of the Kabir Panth, or sect devoted to Kabir's teachings. This book presents about half of the Bījak; the translators have selected those poems which seem most representative and which work best in translation. The Bījak includes three main sections called Ramainī, Śabda, and Sākhī, and a fourth section containing miscellaneous folksong forms. Most of the Kabir material has been popularized through the song form known as śabda (or pada), and through the aphoristic two‐line sākhī (or doha) that serves throughout north India as a vehicle for popular wisdom. These two forms have been emphasized in this translation; a group of ramainīs have also been included. An introduction by Hess precedes the translations; scholarly notes and three appendices, including an essay on Kabir's ulatbamsi or “upside‐down language,” are also by Hess.</p>Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh2003-11-01The Architecture of Theology//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199236367.001.0001/acprof-9780199236367
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780199236367.jpg" alt="The Architecture of TheologyStructure, System, and Ratio"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>A. N. Williams</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780199236367</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Theology</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199236367.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2011</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2011-09-22</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>This work proposes a new reading of Christian theology. Examining theological warrants, philosophical debates over the structures of arguments, and the role of beauty in intellectual structures, it suggests theology is inherently systematic, its systematicity reflecting its two subjects, ‘God and other things as they are related to God’ (Aquinas). The roles of the warrants (scripture, tradition, and reason) are re‐evaluated, showing their necessary interdependence. Debates in philosophical epistemology are also examined; these have conventionally contrasted foundationalism and coherentism. A contemporary consensus has emerged, however, of a chastened foundationalism or hybrid foundationalism‐coherentism, in light of which, arguments are understood both as reasoning from foundational propositions and as gaining plausibility from the coherence of claims. Theological arguments also exhibit a dual structure, with propositions underwritten by their dependence on both scripture and tradition and by their coherence in integrated webs, or systems. Theology is therefore shown to be systematic in its fundamental structure. The systematicity of theology is a function of its subject matter, ‘God and other things as they are related to God’. Both the two chief subjects of theology (God and humanity) and theology itself are characterized by rationality and relationality. Theology is therefore doubly mimetic, reflecting its subject matter in its structures of reasoning. The order and harmony of those structures however have an aesthetic appeal and potentially attract because of their beauty, rather than their truth. Theological aesthetics is surveyed, asking whether the beauty of systematic structures counts for or against their truth.</p>A. N. Williams2011-09-22Supernatural Agents//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380026.001.0001/acprof-9780195380026
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780195380026.jpg" alt="Supernatural AgentsWhy We Believe in Souls, Gods, and Buddhas"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Ilkka Pyysiäinen</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780195380026</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Philosophy of Religion</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380026.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2009</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2009-05-01</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>This book provides a cognitive scientific perspective to beliefs about supernatural agents. First, human intuitions about agents, agency, and counterintuitive concepts are outlined and explained. Second, various kinds of folk beliefs and theological doctrines about souls and spirits are analyzed in the light of the human cognitive architecture, using descriptions of spirit possession and shamanism as materials. Third, scholastic discussions of God’s cognitive capacities as well as folk-psychological God beliefs are analyzed. This analysis combines with a discussion of Buddhist ideas of soullesness and of buddhahood in textual traditions and in folk beliefs. Beliefs about God and buddhas are shown to rest on the same cognitive capacities of understanding agency and intentionality that underlie spirit beliefs. The Buddhist doctrine of soullessness was originally a denial of the self as a separate spiritual entity, not a denial of personal agency. God and buddhas differ from ordinary agents in that they are believed to have open access to all minds. Therefore, they can serve as means of representing what persons believe others to believe. Such divine minds are also used as an explanation for the fact that the whole of reality is intuitively experienced as if intentionally directed by a personal will. The book ends with a discussion of the future of religion and atheism.</p>Ilkka Pyysiäinen2009-05-01Korean Spirituality//hawaii.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.21313/hawaii/9780824832339.001.0001/upso-9780824832339
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780824832339.jpg" alt="Korean Spirituality"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Don Baker</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780824832339</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>University of Hawai'i Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, World Religions</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.21313/hawaii/9780824832339.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2008</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2016-11-17</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>Korea has one of the most dynamic and diverse religious cultures of any nation on earth. Koreans are highly religious, yet no single religious community enjoys dominance. Buddhists share the Korean religious landscape with both Protestant and Catholic Christians as well as with shamans, Confucians, and practitioners of numerous new religions. As a result, Korea is a fruitful site for the exploration of the various manifestations of spirituality in the modern world. At the same time, however, the complexity of the country's religious topography can overwhelm the novice explorer. Emphasizing the attitudes and aspirations of the Korean people rather than ideology, this book navigates the highways and byways of Korean spirituality. It adopts a broad approach that distinguishes the different roles that folk religion, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, and indigenous new religions have played in Korea in the past and continue to play in the present while identifying commonalities behind that diversity to illuminate the distinctive nature of spirituality on the Korean peninsula.</p>Don Baker2016-11-17The Divine Eye and the Diaspora//hawaii.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.21313/hawaii/9780824840044.001.0001/upso-9780824840044
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780824840044.jpg" alt="The Divine Eye and the DiasporaVietnamese Syncretism Becomes Transpacific Caodaism"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Janet Alison Hoskins</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780824840044</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>University of Hawai'i Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Religious Studies</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.21313/hawaii/9780824840044.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2015</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2016-11-17</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>Caodaism, Vietnam’s third largest religion with four million followers, is now a major world religion. Colorful and strikingly eclectic, it incorporates Chinese, Buddhist and Western traditions along with more recent world figures like Victor Hugo, Jeanne d’Arc, Lenin and (in the USA) the Mormon founder Joseph Smith. Sometimes described as “outrageously syncretistic”, its combination of different elements has been seen as an excessive, even trangressive combination of the traditions of Asia and the West. Caodaism emerged in the 1920s during the struggle against colonialism in French Indochina. Millions converted in the first few decades, and Caodaists played important roles in the nationalist movement and the American war in Vietnam. Communist victory in 1975 led to severe restrictions inside Vietnam, but Caodaism flourished in the diaspora in the US, France, Australia and Canada. The lives of religious founders from the Caodai “the age of revelations” (1925-1934) are contrasted with experiences of their disciples and descendants in the “age of diaspora” (1975-present) when many Caodaists went into exile. Paired biographies of founders and followers show the tension between initial religious inspiration and diasporic re-interpretations in a new context, as the religion has achieved a global outreach on both sides of the Pacific.</p>Janet Alison Hoskins2016-11-17Religious Reading//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195125771.001.0001/acprof-9780195125771
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="http://yale.universitypressscholarship.com/assets/classpath/ea69e1a/skins/upso/skin/images/default.gif" alt="Religious ReadingThe Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Paul J. Griffiths</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780195125771</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Religion and Literature</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195125771.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>1999</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2011-10-03</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>What social conditions and intellectual practices are necessary in order for religious cultures to flourish? This book finds the answer in “religious reading” — the kind of reading in which a religious believer allows his mind to be furnished and his heart instructed by a sacred text, understood in the light of an authoritative tradition. It favorably contrasts the practices and pedagogies of traditional religious cultures with those of our own fragmented and secularized culture and insists that religious reading should be preserved.</p>Paul J. Griffiths2011-10-03Augustine and the Disciplines//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230044.001.0001/acprof-9780199230044
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780199230044.jpg" alt="Augustine and the DisciplinesFrom Cassiciacum to Confessions"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>KarlaPollmannKarla PollmannProfessor of Classics, St Andrews UniversityMarkVesseyMark VesseyProfessor of English, University of British Columbiahttp://www.english.ubc.ca/faculty/vessey/index.htm</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780199230044</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Early Christian Studies</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230044.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2007</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2011-10-03</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>This book takes its cue from Augustine's theory of the liberal arts to explore the larger question of how the Bible became the focus of medieval culture in the West. Augustine himself became increasingly aware that an ambivalent attitude towards knowledge and learning was inherent in Christianity. By facing the intellectual challenge posed by this tension he arrived at a new theory of how to interpret the Bible correctly. One of the topics investigated here is Augustine's changing relationship with the ‘disciplines’ as he moved from an attempt at their Christianisation (in the philosophical dialogues of Cassiciacum) to a radical reshaping of them within a Christian world-view (in the De Doctrina Christiana and Confessions). The book also considers the factors that prompted and facilitated his change of perspective and the ways in which Augustine's evolving theory reflected contemporary trends in Christian pedagogy.</p>Karla Pollmann and Mark Vessey2011-10-03The Madman's Middle Way//chicago.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.7208/chicago/9780226493220.001.0001/upso-9780226493169
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780226493169.jpg" alt="The Madman's Middle WayReflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Chopel"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Donald S. Lopez Jr.</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780226493169</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>University of Chicago Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Buddhism</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.7208/chicago/9780226493220.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2005</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2013-03-21</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>Gendun Chopel is considered the most important Tibetan intellectual of the twentieth century. His life spanned the two defining moments in modern Tibetan history: the entry into Lhasa by British troops in 1904 and by Chinese troops in 1951. Recognized as an incarnate lama while he was a child, Gendun Chopel excelled in the traditional monastic curriculum and went on to become expert in fields as diverse as philosophy, history, linguistics, geography, and tantric Buddhism. Near the end of his life, before he was persecuted and imprisoned by the government of the young Dalai Lama, he would dictate the Adornment for Nagarjuna's Thought, a work on Madhyamaka, or “Middle Way,” philosophy. It sparked controversy immediately upon its publication and continues to do so today. This book presents the first English translation of this major Tibetan Buddhist work, accompanied by a chapter on Gendun Chopel's life liberally interspersed with passages from his writings. The book also provides a commentary that sheds light on the doctrinal context of the Adornment and summarizes its key arguments. Ultimately, it examines the long-standing debate over whether Gendun Chopel in fact is the author of the Adornment; the heated critical response to the work by Tibetan monks of the Dalai Lama's sect; and what the Adornment tells us about Tibetan Buddhism's encounter with modernity.</p>Donald S. Lopez Jr.2013-03-21A Trinitarian Theology of Religions//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199751839.001.0001/acprof-9780199751839
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780199751839.jpg" alt="A Trinitarian Theology of ReligionsAn Evangelical Proposal"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Gerald R. McDermott, Harold A. Netland</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780199751839</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Theology</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199751839.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2014</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2014-06-19</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>Over the last four decades, evangelical scholars have shown increasing interest in other religions and issues in the theology of religions. The result has been a plethora of books and articles, with consensus on some issues and controversy over others. There has been a healthy plurality of views on some questions, but at the same time, there are disagreement and confusion over others. The authors are convinced that there is a need for a theology of religions that is firmly rooted in God’s self-revelation in Scripture and the Trinitarian heritage of orthodox theology and yet takes seriously the religious realities in our world and is willing to work with religious others for the common good. This book is an attempt by two senior scholars to map the terrain, describe new territory, and warn of dangerous journeys taken by some writers on these issues. The book offers critiques of a variety of theologians and religious-studies scholars, including evangelicals, but it also challenges evangelicals to move beyond parochial positions. It is both a manifesto and a research program, critically evaluating the last forty years of Christian treatments of religious others and proposing a comprehensive direction for the future. It addresses issues relating to the religions in both systematic theology and missiology—taking up long-debated questions such as contextualization, salvation, revelation, the relationship between culture and religion, conversion, social action, and ecumenism. The last section of the book includes responses from four leading thinkers of African, Asian, and European backgrounds.</p>Gerald R. McDermott and Harold A. Netland2014-06-19By the Renewing of Your Minds//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134865.001.0001/acprof-9780195134865
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780195134865.jpg" alt="By the Renewing of Your MindsThe Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Ellen T. Charry</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780195134865</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Theology</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134865.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>1999</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2011-10-03</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>Through close readings of a number of classic texts, this book develops the thesis that classic Christian theology is thoroughly shaped by pastoral and moral purposes. The book's aim is to show contemporary theologians how to teach the faith in a morally constructive fashion, transcending the current destructive opposition between ‘academic’ and ‘pastoral’ theology.</p>Ellen T. Charry2011-10-03Comparing Faithfully//fordham.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5422/fordham/9780823274666.001.0001/upso-9780823274666
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780823274666.jpg" alt="Comparing FaithfullyInsights for Systematic Theological Reflection"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>MichelleVoss RobertsMichelle Voss RobertsWake Forest University</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780823274666</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Fordham University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Theology</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.5422/fordham/9780823274666.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2016</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2017-05-18</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>In recent decades, comparative theology has emerged as a method of thinking as an adherent to a particular religious tradition, through deep and focused conversation with another tradition. This discipline has the potential to enrich Christian systematic theology and, by extension, theological education, at its foundations. For this purpose, Comparing Faithfully: Insights for Systematic Theological Reflection reconsiders five central areas of Christian doctrinal reflection in light of focused interreligious readings, as a resource for pastors and theology students. The dialogical format of the book creates conversations about the doctrine of God, theodicy, humanity, Christology, and soteriology. The comparative essays span examples from Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Jain, and Confucian traditions, Aztec theology, and contemporary “spiritual but not religious” thought, to offer exciting new perspectives on Christian doctrine.</p>Michelle Voss Roberts2017-05-18Opening a Mountain//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195135865.001.0001/acprof-9780195135862
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780195135862.jpg" alt="Opening a MountainKoans of the Zen Masters"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Steven Heine</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780195135862</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Buddhism</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/0195135865.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2001</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2003-11-01</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p> Opening a Mountain is a translation with a commentary of 60 koan cases that feature an important supernatural or ritual element selected from a variety of the major and minor Zen Buddhist koan collections compiled in Sung China and Kamakura Japan. The koan is a brief, enigmatic anecdote or dialog between two contesting parties that defines the heart. The book demonstrates that the main theme underlying much of the koan literature deals with how Zen masters opened or transformed mountains. The transforming of spiritual forces that had been closing off the mountains into manifestations of sacred space in Zen was referred to as kuai‐shan in Chinese (or kaizan in Japanese). The mountains harbored spirits, demons, and bodhisattvas, as well as hermits, recluses, ascetics, and other irregular practitioners, and were opened using the symbols and rituals of spiritual purification. In contrast with conventional interpretations that view koans as psychological exercises with a purely iconoclastic intention, the approach here highlights the rich component of mythological and marvelous elements that pervade this genre of literature in a way that complements, rather than contradicts, the demythological or iconoclastic perspective. This approach to interpreting Zen literature is distinctive and innovative in several respects. Opening a Mountain includes the selection of koan cases emphasizing supernatural symbols, such as mountains, animals, and other natural imagery, based on a scholarly standard of translation and citation of source materials. The main topics include “Surveying Mountain Landscapes,” “Contesting with Irregular Rivals,” “Encountering Supernatural Forces,” “Wielding Symbols of Authority,” and “Giving Life and Controlling Death as Confessional Experiences.”</p>Steven Heine2003-11-01Friedrich Max Müller and the Sacred Books of the East//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198784234.001.0001/acprof-9780198784234
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780198784234.jpg" alt="Friedrich Max Müller and the Sacred Books of the East"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Arie L. Molendijk</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780198784234</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, World Religions, Hinduism</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198784234.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2016</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2016-08-18</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>The edition of the fifty massive volumes of the Sacred Books of the East (1879–1910) was one of the most ambitious and daring editorial projects of late Victorian scholarship. The German-born philologist, orientalist, and religious scholar Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900) persuaded Oxford University Press to embark on this venture. ‘Müller’s grand design’ was supported financially by the India Office of the British empire and Oxford University Press. Müller resigned from his Oxford chair of comparative philology to become the general editor of this megaproject. He engaged an international team of renowned scholars (among whom James Legge, James Darmesteter, Hendrik Kern, Julius Eggeling, Thomas William Rhys Davids, Kashinath Trimbak Telang, and Hermann Oldenberg) to translate the ‘sacred texts’. The series used and defined categories of the study of culture, especially of religion. Religious studies was often called ‘comparative religion’ at the time, indicating the importance of the comparative method for this emerging discipline. The edition also contributed significantly to the Western perception of the ‘religious’ or even ‘mystic’ East, which was textually represented in English translations. This book is a study in intellectual history, in particular the history of the study of religions (1860–1900). A close reading of Müller’s work is combined with theoretical reflection on the defining moments in the making of the Sacred Books of the East series. The focus is on Max Müller’s conceptualization, management, and ambitions in bringing this grand project to a conclusion.</p>Arie L. Molendijk2016-08-18Christian Lives Given to the Study of Islam//fordham.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5422/fordham/9780823243198.001.0001/upso-9780823243198
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="http://yale.universitypressscholarship.com/assets/classpath/ea69e1a/skins/upso/skin/images/default.gif" alt="Christian Lives Given to the Study of Islam"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Christian W.TrollChristian W. TrollSt. Georgen Graduate School of Theology and Philosophy, Frankfurt am MainC.T.R.HewerC.T.R. Hewer</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780823243198</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Fordham University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Islam</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.5422/fordham/9780823243198.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2012</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2013-01-24</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>This book captures the autobiographical reflections of twenty-eight Christians who were amongst those who, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and initiatives of the World Council of Churches, committed their lives to the study of Islam and to practical Christian-Muslim relations in new and irenic ways. They record what drew them into the study of Islam, how their careers developed, what sustained them in this work and salient milestones along the way. These men and women come from a dozen nationalities and across the spectrum of the Western Church. Their accounts take us to twenty-five countries and into all the branches of Islamic studies: Qur'an, Hadith, Shari'a, Sufism, philology, theology and philosophy. They range in age from late-forties to late-nineties and so have a wealth of experience to share. They give fascinating insights into personal encounters with Islam and Muslims, speak of the ways in which their Christian traditions of spiritual training formed and nourished them, and deal with some of the misunderstandings and opposition that they have faced along the way. In an analytical conclusion, the editors draw out themes and pointers towards future developments. Such a constellation has not existed before and will not be seen again for at least half a century. Theirs is a unique generation and this is their considered contribution to the state of Christian-Muslim engagement today.</p>Christian W. Troll and C.T.R. Hewer2013-01-24Execution and Invention//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195179196.001.0001/acprof-9780195179194
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780195179194.jpg" alt="Execution and InventionDeath Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Beth A. Berkowitz</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780195179194</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Religion and Society</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/0195179196.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2006</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2006-02-01</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p> Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures argues that ancient rabbis and Christians used death penalty discourse to invent themselves as figures of authority. This approach runs counter to much previous scholarship on the subject, which claims that ancient Jews opposed the death penalty and would have abolished it if not for its presence in the Bible. The book explores this scholarship and shows it to have been fueled by modern anti-Semitism, polemics with the the Jewish Enlightenment’s inheritance of anti-rabbinism, as well as controversy in the United States over capital punishment and its abolition. The book moves beyond this “humanitarianism” approach, inviting us instead to see the problem of building and maintaining authority as the crux around which ancient death penalty discourse developed. Drawing on ritual theory, postcolonial theory, and scholarship on criminal execution in other historical contexts, Execution and Invention asks new questions of the ancient texts: How and why do ancient western religions talk about killing criminals? What are the social consequences of this kind of violent talk? What kind of authority is imagined by these texts, and What strategies do the texts use to make this authority seem compelling? Combining the contemporary theory with classical source critical approaches, the book closely reads a variety of ancient texts describing criminal executions. It newly interprets these texts, showing that their descriptions of violent deaths have a complex social function. In the process, the book spins out the social implications of capital punishment and overturns enduring stereotypes of Judaism and Christianity.</p>Beth A. Berkowitz2006-02-01Song of the Distant Dove//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195315424.001.0001/acprof-9780195315424
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780195315424.jpg" alt="Song of the Distant DoveJudah Halevi’s Pilgrimage"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Raymond P. Scheindlin</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780195315424</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Judaism</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195315424.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2007</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2008-09-01</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>Judah Halevi, the great medieval Hebrew poet, abandoned home and family in Spain (al-Andalus) at the end of his life and traveled east to die in the Holy Land. This book narrates his journey, quoting from Arabic letters by Halevi and his friends, and explores its meaning through analysis of his Hebrew poems. The poems are presented both in Hebrew and in new English verse translations and are provided with full commentary. The discussion introduces Halevi’s circle of Jewish businessmen and intellectuals in al-Andalus and Egypt, examines their way of life, and describes their position vis-à-vis Arabic and Islamic culture. It also explores the interweaving of religious ideas of Jewish, Islamic, and Hellenistic origin in Halevi’s work. Although Halevi was partially motivated by a desire to repudiate the Judeo-Arabic hybrid culture and embrace purely Jewish values, the book demonstrates that his poetry and his pilgrimage continue to reflect the Judeo-Arabic milieu. His poetry and pilgrimage also show that while the Jews’ precarious situation as a tolerated minority weighed on Halevi, he was impelled to the pilgrimage not by a grand plan for ending the Jewish exile, as is widely thought, but by a personal religious quest. Chapters 1 through 3 each deal with one of the major themes of Halevi’s poetry that point in the direction of the pilgrimage. Chapters 4 through 6 are a narrative of the pilgrimage. Chapters 7 through 10 are a study of Halevi’s poems that are explicitly about the Land of Israel and about the pilgrimage. The epilogue explores the later legend of his martyrdom.</p>Raymond P. Scheindlin2008-09-01Remembering Abraham//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195177967.001.0001/acprof-9780195177961
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780195177961.jpg" alt="Remembering AbrahamCulture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Ronald Hendel</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780195177961</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Biblical Studies</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/0195177967.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2005</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2006-02-01</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>The past in the Hebrew Bible is a represented past, not the past itself. This book argues that the biblical portrayal of the past consists of a complex interplay of historical memory, folklore, cultural self-definition, and literary brilliance. The chapters of this book attempt to survey and, to the degree possible, untangle these various layers, concentrating on the foundational narratives of the patriarchs, the Exodus, and the united monarchy. The biblical sense of the past combines traits that we separate into different genres — myth, epic, and history — but form a seamless synthesis in the biblical conception.</p>Ronald Hendel2006-02-01Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches//california.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1525/california/9780520284968.001.0001/upso-9780520284968
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780520284968.jpg" alt="Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780520284968</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>University of California Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, History of Christianity</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1525/california/9780520284968.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2015</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2016-01-21</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>This book analyzes the hagiographic traditions of six missionary saints in the Syriac tradition: Thomas, Addai, Mari, Simeon of Beth Arsham, Jacob Baradaeus, and Ahoudemmeh. Through studying these saints’ lives, we gain an understanding of the development of the East and West Syriac ecclesiastical bodies: the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of the East. The lives of the missionaries encapsulate the concerns of the communities that wrote them.</p>Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent2016-01-21Well-Mannered Medicine//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199856268.001.0001/acprof-9780199856268
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780199856268.jpg" alt="Well-Mannered MedicineMedical Ethics and Etiquette in Classical Ayurveda"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Dagmar Wujastyk</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780199856268</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Hinduism</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199856268.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2012</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2012-09-20</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>When is it right for a doctor to lie to a patient? What is more important: a patient's health, or his dignity? When should a patient refuse to follow the doctor's orders? What is acceptable medical risk? Whose fault is it if a patient dies under a doctor's care? Who cares for the patient? And who pays the bill? About two thousand years ago, physicians in ancient India could find answers to these questions in the then new, and now classic ayurvedic textbooks. Held in great respect, and used for ayurvedic training even today, the early ayurvedic treatises offer many guidelines on good medical practice: They define what made a physician a good physician, or a patient a good patient. They describe the formal procedures of medical education and lay out the rules for subsequent practice. They determine the duties or obligations doctors and patients had to each other, providing a catalogue of rules of professional conduct that physicians were bound to, including guidelines on appropriate interactions both with patients as well as with colleagues. Translating and discussing the original Sanskrit texts of the core ayurvedic treatises, the book offers a survey and analysis of the ayurvedic moral discourses on professional conduct in a medical setting and explores in what relationship the ethical tenets found in the ayurvedic works stand to those from other broadly contemporaneous South Asian sources.</p>Dagmar Wujastyk2012-09-20Passing the Plate//www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195337112.001.0001/acprof-9780195337112
<table><tr><td width="200px"><img width="150px" src="/view/covers/9780195337112.jpg" alt="Passing the PlateWhy American Christians Don't Give Away More Money"/><br/></td><td><dl><dt>Author:</dt><dd>Christian Smith, Michael O. Emerson, Patricia Snell</dd><dt>ISBN:</dt><dd>9780195337112</dd><dt>Publisher:</dt><dd>Oxford University Press</dd><dt>Subjects:</dt><dd>Religion, Religion and Society</dd><dt>DOI:</dt><dd>10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195337112.001.0001</dd><dt>Published in print:</dt><dd>2008</dd><dt>Published Online:</dt><dd>2009-05-01</dd></dl></td></tr></table><p>This book shows that few American Christians donate generously to religious and charitable causes — a parsimony that seriously undermines the work of churches and ministries. Far from the ten percent of one's income that tithing requires, American Christians' financial giving typically amounts, by some measures, to less than one percent of annual earnings. And a startling one out of five self-identified Christians gives nothing at all. This book explores the reasons behind such ungenerous giving, the potential world-changing benefits of greater financial giving, and what can be done to improve matters. If American Christians gave more generously any number of worthy projects — from the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS to the promotion of inter-religious understanding to the upgrading of world missions — could be funded at astounding levels. Analyzing a wide range of social surveys and government and denominational statistical datasets, and drawing on in-depth interviews with Christian pastors and church members in seven different states, the book identifies a crucial set of factors that appear to depress religious financial support — among them the powerful allure of a mass-consumerist culture and its impact on Americans' priorities, parishioners' suspicions of waste and abuse by nonprofit administrators, clergy's hesitations to boldly ask for money, and the lack of structure and routine in the way most American Christians give away money. The book's conclusion suggests practical steps that clergy and lay leaders might take to counteract these tendencies and better educate their congregations about the transformative effects of generous giving.</p>Christian Smith, Michael O. Emerson, and Patricia Snell2009-05-01